Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
It is known to use a large number of access control devices in an access control environment. It is also known for such an environment to include:                Connected access control devices, which are connected to a network and communicate with a central administration server over that network.        Disconnected access control devices, which are not connected to the network. For example, in some cases an access control device, due to its location, cannot be provided with a network connection (either wired or wireless).        
Typically, there is a need to periodically provide modified configuration data to access control devices. This is a relatively straightforward process in the case of a connected access control device—the modified configuration data is delivered by the administration server to the device over the network. However, providing modified configuration data to disconnected access control devices presents practical difficulties. One option is to transport the disconnected device to a location where it can receive the configuration data from a computational device, or where it can access an available network connection. However, in many instances, the device is not easily transportable. As such, a more appropriate technique is to transport a portable computational platform to the disconnected device.
Perhaps the most common approach for providing modified configuration data to a disconnected access control device involves physically connecting a computational platform (such as a laptop computer or PDA) to the disconnected access control device, and uploading the modified configuration data from the computational platform to the disconnected access control device. However, this requires a readily accessible connection interface (such as a serial port, USB port, or a parallel port), and typically further requires a reasonable degree of technical expertise to implement. Additionally, there remain significant limitations on the currency of configuration data able to be maintained on the disconnected reader at a given point in time.
It follows that there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for configuring access control devices.